‘You know,’ Barbara observed, ‘you’ve got a complex about this room. Do you remember last night? There we all were, completely shattered by the disappearance of the formula, and in you strode, and produced the most marvellous anti-climax by saying in your best conversational manner, “What a delightful room, Mr Amory.” It was so funny when the two of you walked in. There was this extraordinary little man with you, no more than five feet four, but with an air of immense dignity. And you, being oh, so polite.’
‘Poirot is rather odd at first sight, I admit,’ Hastings agreed. ‘And he has all kinds of little foibles. For instance, he has an absolute passion for neatness of any kind. If he sees an ornament set crookedly, or a speck of dust, or even a slight disarray in someone’s attire, it’s absolute torture to him.’
‘You make such a wonderful contrast to each other,’ Barbara said, laughing.
‘Poirot’s methods of detection are very much his own, you know,’ Hastings continued. ‘Order and method are his gods. He has a great disdain for tangible evidence, things like footprints and cigarette ash, you know what I mean. In fact he maintains that, taken by themselves, they would never enable a detective to solve a problem. The true work, he says, is done from within. And then he taps that egg-shaped head of his, and remarks with great satisfaction, “The little grey cells of the brain – always remember the little grey cells, mon ami.”’
‘Oh, I think he’s a poppet,’ Barbara declared. ‘But not as sweet as you, with your “What a delightful room”!’
‘But it is a delightful room,’ Hastings insisted, sounding rather nettled.
‘Personally, I don’t agree with you,’ said Barbara. She took his hand and tried to pull him towards the open french windows. ‘Anyway, you’ve had quite enough of it for now. Come along.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Hastings declared, taking his hand away from her. ‘I promised Poirot.’
Barbara spoke slowly. ‘You promised Monsieur Poirot that you would not leave this room? But why?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘Oh!’ Barbara was silent for a moment or two, and then her manner changed. She moved behind Hastings and began to recite, in an exaggerated dramatic voice, ‘“The boy stood on the burning deck –”’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘“Whence all but he had fled.” Well, my pet?’
‘I simply cannot understand you,’ Hastings declared in exasperation.
‘Why should you understand me? Oh, you really are a delight,’ declared Barbara, slipping her arm through his. ‘Come and be vamped. Really, you know, I think you’re adorable.’
‘You’re pulling my leg.’
‘Not at all,’ Barbara insisted. ‘I’m crazy about you. You’re positively pre-war.’
She pulled him to the french windows, and this time Hastings allowed himself to yield to the pressure of her arm. ‘You really are an extraordinary person,’ he told her. ‘You’re quite different from any girl I’ve ever met.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it. That’s a very good sign,’ said Barbara, as they now stood, face to face, framed in the open windows.
‘A good sign?’
‘Yes, it makes a girl feel hopeful.’
Hastings blushed, and Barbara laughed light-heartedly as she dragged him out into the garden.
Chapter 16
After Barbara’s exit with Hastings into the garden, the library remained unoccupied for no longer than a moment or two. Then the door to the hall opened, and Miss Amory entered, carrying a small work-bag. She went over to the settee, put the bag down, knelt, and began to feel at the back of the seat. As she did so, Dr Carelli entered by the other door, carrying a hat and a small suitcase. Seeing Miss Amory, Carelli stopped and murmured a word of apology at having intruded upon her.
Miss Amory rose from the settee, looking a trifle flustered. ‘I was searching for a knitting needle,’ she explained unnecessarily, brandishing her discovery as she spoke. ‘It had slipped down behind the seat.’ Then, taking in the significance of his suitcase, she asked, ‘Are you leaving us, Dr Carelli?’
Carelli put his hat and suitcase on a chair. ‘I feel I can no longer trespass on your hospitality,’ he announced.
Obviously delighted, Miss Amory was polite enough to murmur, ‘Well, of course, if you feel like that –’ Then, remembering the situation in which the occupants of the house currently found themselves, she added, ‘But I thought there were some tiresome formalities –’ Her voice trailed off indecisively.
‘Oh, that is all arranged,’ Carelli assured her.
‘Well, if you feel you must go –’
‘I do, indeed.’
‘Then I will order the car,’ Miss Amory declared briskly, moving to the bell above the fireplace.
‘No, no,’ Carelli insisted. ‘That, too, is all arranged.’
‘But you’ve even had to carry your suitcase down yourself. Really, the servants! They’re all demoralized, completely demoralized!’ She returned to the settee, and took her knitting from her bag. ‘They can’t concentrate, Dr Carelli. They cannot keep their heads. So curious, is it not?’
Looking distinctly on edge, Carelli replied offhandedly, ‘Very curious.’ He glanced at the telephone.
Miss Amory began to knit, keeping up a flow of aimless conversation as she did so. ‘I suppose you are catching the twelve-fifteen. You mustn’t run it too fine. Not that I want to fuss, of course. I always say that fussing over –’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Dr Carelli interrupted peremptorily, ‘but there is plenty of time, I think. I – I wondered if I might use the telephone?’
Miss Amory looked up momentarily. ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ she said, as she continued to knit. It seemed not to have occurred to her that Dr Carelli might have wanted to make his telephone call in private.
‘Thank you,’ murmured Carelli, moving to the desk and making a pretence of looking up a number in the telephone directory. He glanced across impatiently at Miss Amory. ‘I think your niece was looking for you,’ he remarked.
Miss Amory’s only reaction to this information was to talk about her niece while continuing with her knitting undisturbed. ‘Dear Barbara!’ she exclaimed. ‘Such a sweet creature. You know, she leads rather a sad life here, far too dull for a young girl. Well, well, things will be different now, I dare say.’ She dwelt pleasurably on this thought for a moment, before continuing, ‘Not that I haven’t done all I could. But what a girl needs is a little gaiety. All the Beeswax in the world won’t make up for that.’
Dr Carelli’s face was a study in incomprehension, mixed with more than a little irritation. ‘Beeswax?’ he felt obliged to ask.
‘Yes, Beeswax – or is it Bemax? Vitamins, you know, or at least that’s what it says on the tin. A and B and C and D. All of them, except the one that keeps you from having beri-beri. And I really think there’s no need for that, if one is living in England. It’s not a disease one encounters here. It comes, I believe, from polishing the rice in native countries. So interesting. I made Mr Raynor take it – Beeswax, I mean – after breakfast every day. He was looking pale, poor young fellow. I tried to make Lucia take it too, but she wouldn’t.’ Miss Amory shook her head disapprovingly. ‘And to think, when I was a girl, I was strictly forbidden to eat caramels because of the Beeswax – I mean Bemax. Times change, you know. Times do change.’
Though he attempted to disguise the fact, by now Dr Carelli was positively fuming. ‘Yes, yes, Miss Amory,’ he replied as politely as he could manage. Moving towards her, he tried a somewhat more direct approach. ‘I think your niece is calling you.’
‘Calling me?’
‘Yes. Do you not hear?’
Miss Amory listened. ‘No – no,’ she confessed. ‘How curious.’ She rolled up her knitting. ‘You must have keen
ears, Dr Carelli. Not that my hearing is bad. Indeed, I’ve been told that –’
She dropped her ball of wool, and Carelli picked it up for her. ‘Thank you so much,’ she said. ‘All the Amorys have keen hearing, you know.’ She rose from the settee. ‘My father kept his faculties in the most remarkable way. He could read without glasses when he was eighty.’ She dropped the ball of wool again, and again Carelli stooped to retrieve it for her.
‘Oh, thank you so much,’ Miss Amory continued. ‘A remarkable man, Dr Carelli. My father, I mean. Such a remarkable man. He always slept in a four-poster feather bed; and the windows of his bedroom were never opened. The night air, he used to say, was most injurious. Unfortunately, when he had an attack of gout he was nursed by a young woman who insisted on the window being opened at the top, and my poor father died of it.’
She dropped the ball of wool yet again. This time, after picking it up, Carelli planted it firmly in her hand and led her to the door. Miss Amory moved slowly, talking all the time. ‘I do not care at all for hospital nurses, Dr Carelli,’ she informed him. ‘They gossip about their cases, they drink far too much tea, and they always upset the servants.’
‘Very true, dear lady, very true,’ Carelli agreed hastily, opening the door for her.
‘Thank you so much,’ Miss Amory said as he propelled her out of the room. Shutting the door after her, Carelli moved quickly to the desk and lifted the telephone receiver. After a pause, he spoke into it softly but urgently. ‘This is Market Cleve three-one-four. I want London . . . Soho double eight-five-three . . . no, five-three, that’s right . . . Eh? . . . Will you call me? . . . Right.’
He replaced the receiver, and then stood, biting his nails impatiently. After a moment, he crossed to the door of the study, opened it, and entered the room. Hardly had he done so, when Edward Raynor came into the library from the hall. Glancing around, Raynor strolled casually to the fireplace. He touched the vase of spills on the mantelpiece and, as he did so, Carelli came back into the room from the study. As Carelli closed the study door, Raynor turned and saw him.